Basse Normandie

Basse Normandie

2004 · 117 min · ★ 6.3 · Documentary

Basse Normandie is based on actual events. Protagonists Simon Reggiani and Patricia Mazuy are also husband and wife in real life. They filmed the creation of one of Simon’s plays, and then reenacted some of the events surrounding it. Simon prepares for a one-man show that he will perform largely on horseback, including dressage. The local government of the region hopes to use the play to improve its image; with government’s support, it’s decided that Simon will perform the play before an audience of over 1,700 farmers during an agricultural congress in Paris. The director of a large stud farm provides Simon with rehearsal space. What follows is the path that Reggiani had to take in order to create his performance — a path filled with obstacles ranging from uncooperative stable staff and a grumpy horse to vocal problems. An intriguing and occasionally absurd mixture of filmed theater, a making-of documentary, mockumentary and dressage lesson.

Directed by Patricia Mazuy

Your Rating

Make it a double feature

3h 43m together

Basse Normandie

Vagabond

Both from Patricia Mazuy.

More from Patricia MazuySee all →

Vagabond

Vagabond · 1985

Mona Bergeron is dead, her frozen body found in a ditch in the French countryside. From this, the film flashes back to the weeks leading up to her death. Through these flashbacks, Mona gradually declines as she travels from place to place, taking odd jobs and staying with whomever will offer her a place to sleep. Mona is fiercely independent, craving freedom over comfort, but it is this desire to be free that will eventually lead to her demise.

La Finale

La Finale · 1999

MovieDramaComedy

A low-income housing estate in the south of France, at the time of the soccer World Cup. The daughter of the leader of an extreme right-wing party sets out to discover the world of the fans.

Des taureaux et des vaches

Des taureaux et des vaches · 1992

Des taureaux et des vaches

MovieDocumentary

Cattle breeding leaves less and less room for chance or empiricism. While focusing on the relationship between the farmer and his cows, Patricia Mazuy takes us on the great merry-go-round of animal selection and the quest for performance. With precision and humor, this masterful film introduces us to genetics, testing, artificial insemination, "in vitro" fertilization, cloning and other embryo transfers in the French cattle breeding world.

Wundkanal

Wundkanal · 1984

An old man is kidnapped. His interrogation uncovers the biography of a mass murderer: The 80 years old man was a SS leader and responsible for the killing of thousands of people in the Soviet Union. He also "invented" an evil technique of eliminating political prisoners: the manipulated suicide. Thomas Harlan reconstructs the history of a bureaucratic murderer, he also develops a direct connection between the Nationalsocialism and the treatment of prisoners of the RAF terrorists in the Stuttgart isolation prison. Robert Kramer filmed the shooting of Harlan's Wundkanal: Notre Nazi documents a social experiment in which the children of Nazis and of victims meet a real culprit. The reality seems to be stronger that the fiction in Harlan's film. (Edition Filmmuseum)

A Room in Town

A Room in Town · 1982

MovieDramaRomance

Set against the backdrop of an increasingly violent strike, a worker falls in love with the middle-class daughter of his landlady.

Thick Skinned

Thick Skinned · 1989

Two brothers set fire to a barn while drunk, inadvertently causing the death of a sleeping wanderer. One of them takes all the blame for the incident and spends ten years in prison.

Visiting Hours

Visiting Hours · 2024

Alma, alone in her big townhouse, and Mina, a single mother from a housing project in another city, have organized their lives around the prison visits they make to their respective partners. When the two women meet in the room outside the visiting area, an unlikely friendship begins...

Saturn Bowling

Saturn Bowling · 2022

MovieDramaThriller

In a family-owned bowling alley, tension arises between two brothers following their father's death. Meanwhile one of them, a cop, is investigating a series of disturbing murders. Both brothers soon find themselves trapped in a looming darkness.

Of Women and Horses

Of Women and Horses · 2012

Of Women and Horses

This microcosm of power and money has no time for Gracieuse, whose only assets are her talent, her fiercely stubborn character, and, most particularly, her determination to succeed. A high tension wire who's ready to stand up to Franz Mann and to face any obstacle, even if it means stepping outside the law, she pursues her sole obsession: to have a horse to call her own that she will take to the top.

Miss Impossible

Miss Impossible · 2017

Miss Impossible

They’re all nuts. Her parents, who want to send her off to boarding school. Her new teacher, who expects her to read impossibly old books. Her fellow band members, who make her sing ridiculous lyrics and dress her up in a frilly white dress for their first show. Everyone seems to know what she should do and how she should act. And it’s not like 13-year-old Aurore has any fundamental problem with changing herself either. Who would want to be like this: unhappy, ugly and emotionally withdrawn? But the others don’t seem all that much happier to her either. She definitely doesn’t ever want to be as old, rundown and lonely as her mother. And so she prefers to stay the way she is, to observe and make her biting comments on whatever comes her way.

Travolta and Me

Travolta and Me · 1993

Travolta and Me

MovieComedyDrama

In the late 1970s, a French teenage girl is obsessed with the then popular American movie heartthrob John Travolta.

Paul Sanchez Is Back!

Paul Sanchez Is Back! · 2018

Paul Sanchez Is Back!

The reappearance of notorious criminal Paul Sanchez becomes an obsession for a young police officer who will do anything to catch him.

Two Rémi, Two

Two Rémi, Two · 2015

MovieFantasyComedy

Thirty years old, a nothing job, a timid love affair: Rémi is a little at sea in his life. Until the day when he must share it with his double, another him, invasive and not so nice. Which one will be the true Rémi?

5 Hectares

5 Hectares · 2023

What causes a man who has everything to jeopardize his comfort, career and relationship? A passion, as burning as it is fresh, for five acres of land in the Limoges region. But land has to be earned, especially when one comes from the city. And so Franck embarks on a quest for his own Holy Grail. He needs a tractor.

The King's Daughters

The King's Daughters · 2000

The King's Daughters

MovieDramaHistory

Late 17th Century: Anne de Grandcamp and Lucie de Fontenelle, two little girls from Normandy, arrive at the Saint-Cyr school founded by Madame de Maintenon for educating the daughters of impoverished nobles ruined in wars and making them into free women. Madame de Maintenon is the secret wife of Louis XIV, and empowered by his support, she offers "her" two hundred fifty girls a playful and avant-garde education. Anne and Lucie, two inseparable friends, allow themselves to be carried away by the promise of a bright future. But Maintenon has arrived at the pinnacle of power through scheming and debasing herself and she now fears the fires of hell. She is counting on her model school to atone for her past sins.

All the Boys and Girls of Their Time

All the Boys and Girls of Their Time · 1994

All the Boys and Girls of Their Time

Tous les garçons et les filles de leur âge... is a French anthology tv series. Filmmakers were given the opportunity to portray an episode about the coming of age of young people during one of the past few decades, accompanied by music of that period.

More Like This

Couldn't load this row right now.

Rate this film

Your ratings make Midnight smarter